Vanity/Nemesis
Vanity/Nemesis is a 1990 album by Celtic Frost. It can be seen as a return-to-form compared to the band's previous album, Cold Lake. The album also includes a cover of David Bowie's 1977 hit "Heroes". Unlike their first 3 albums before the Cold Lake era; this album shows the band heading in a thrash metal direction instead of the black metal sound of the first 2 albums, or the avant-garde metal of Into the Pandemonium. Vanity/Nemesis would be Celtic Frost's last studio album before the dissolution of the band in 1993 and until their return album in 2006 Monotheist. The track "The Heart Beneath" was used on the Manga Entertainment compilation trailers on the UK, Dutch and Australian released video tapes. Album overview Trying to move past the severe career mistake of becoming a glam metal band with their previous release of Cold Lake (after being primarily a death/thrash metal band with their first two albums and mixing various non-metal elements with their third release), Celtic Frost came back with Vanity/Nemesis, mostly being in the power and thrash metal vein. The majority of this release are mid-paced power metal songs, such as “The Name of My Bride”, “Vanity” and “Phallic Tantrum” (although the latter speeds up a little), while others are a mix to being slow to mid-paced (“This Island Earth”) or mid-paced to mildly thrashy (“The Restless Seas” and “The Heart Beneath”). “Nemesis” and “Wings of Solitude” are also mostly mid-paced and have acoustic guitar passages in them. On the other hand though, “Wine in My Hand (Third from the Sun)” and Kiss or a Whisper” are the songs that come closest to Celtic Frost’s [[thrash metal|thrash] roots, although Tom Gabriel Fischer (credited as Thomas Gabriel Warrior on this release) didn’t use as gruff vocals as he did on their first two albums. Also what should be familiar to Frost fans was the return of female vocals again on several songs (“Wings of Solitude”, “Vanity”, “The Restless Seas”, etc.). Track listing *''' Not on the original Vinyl release '''** 1999's re-release bonustrack Personnel ;Celtic Frost *Thomas Gabriel Fischer – Vocals, Guitars (except Tracks 3, 7), Bass (Track 7), Backing vocals (Tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 8) *Curt Victor Bryant – Bass (except Track 7), Guitars (Tracks 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12), Backing vocals (Tracks 1, 2) *Martin E. Ain - Bass (Track 1), Backing vocals (Tracks 1, 7, 10) *Stephen Priestly – Drums ;Session musicians *Michele Amar - Additional vocals (Tracks 3, 11) *Uta Gunther - Backing vocals (Tracks 3, 6, 9, 10, 12) *Roli Mosimann - Additional vocals (Track 1), Sampling keyboards (Track 1) *Michelle Fischer - Additional vocals (Track 1) *Ron Marks - Guitar (except Track 7) ;Production *Alex Leser - Engineering *Michele Amar - Engineering *Andreas Gerhardt - Engineering *Michael Herzog - Engineering *Brian Martin - Mixing, Engineering *Voco Fauxpas - Engineering *Roli Mosimann - Producer *Karl-U. Walterbach - Executive producer *Howie Weinberg - Mastering *Tom Re - Engineering References Trivia *"Nemesis" begins with a quick few second sample of "Into the Crypts of Rays" song from their debut album as well as ends with samples from several of their other songs, only with effects added to them. Category:1990 albums